It is not only farmers and ranchers who feel like everything falls on them, but most business owners as well. Brendan Wovchko, from the Ramsey Leadership group, shared several thoughts on trying to do it all in a recent video.
“It does not matter how much you care; you cannot do it alone,” he says.
The personal level of urgency glues everything together. It is important to create urgency without anxiety. Wovchko also refers to urgency as the fuel every team runs on. But we cannot always be operating in this mode if it is connected to high anxiety and erosion of trust.
Read Also
Factors influencing cattle feeder market during the fall of 2025
Market analyst Jerry Klassen weighs in on live cattle markets
“We need purpose and an elevated level of partnership and collaboration. But not all leaders are equipped to manage this. After all, you cannot model what has not been previously modelled for you.”
Wovchko suggests figuring out your starting point as a leader. Do you operate as a river or a flood? The river is reliable and has boundaries. The flood is chaotic and reverses progress.
The late Peter Drucker, management consultant and author, also said that your job, first and foremost as a leader, is to take charge of your own energy and then help orchestrate the energy of those around you.
Awareness and stress management are two core skills. Wovchko says that intentional leaders use mission to motivate, not mood, and that stress is a powerful motivational tool that most leaders use incorrectly. “Eustress builds confidence, and distress leads to doubt. Total lack of stress results in apathy.”
To first understand our own type of leadership better, Wovchko uses a quadrant model with mission and mood on the vertical axis and distress (doubt) and eustress (confidence) on the horizontal axis. The four types of leadership are Pollyannist, alarmist, absolutist and catalyst.
Pollyannists avoid anxiety. They have an idealistic urgency, thrive on unachievable goals, downplay risks and dismiss concerns. They are detached from limitations and constraints and avoid problems until they are past the point of no return.
Alarmists thrive in ambiguity. They hold themselves to high standards but are also self-critical, always blame themselves, are deeply affected by feedback and avoid conflict because they value harmony. They have an unusually high tolerance for ambiguity and chaos and take blame for everything. They can be warm and inspiring one day and flat and discouraged the next. They raise the stakes higher than necessary, and swing between high energy and being overly involved to burned out and distant.
Absolutists are great at advancing the mission but emotionally exhaust those around them. They are hyper-focused on outcomes, struggle to identify emotional clues and cannot see the negative effect of their intensity on those around them. They criticize those who can’t read their minds and are unwilling to provide coaching. They believe the ends justify the means, struggle to build rapport and need absolute certainty. They alienate or threaten people they can’t control, impose their ideas instead of fostering alignment and criticize others instead of finding their own role in problems. The team dreads working for them, resulting in very little collaboration.
Catalysts prevent anxiety. They are committed to the mission and inspire self-confidence in those around them. They see how things are and how they could be. They think urgency should be shared, not forced. They foster clarity, energy and ownership, don’t shy away from hard conversations and are fuelled by conviction, not chaos. They spot problems early, are cool under pressure and motivate teams by connecting people with purpose. They are quick to give context, coach and encourage, and connect everyday work to the customer and the mission. As a result, the team has clarity and focus, and feels empowered and protected. People rise to the occasion when they bump into something hard, and are energized by work, not exhausted. The team is driven by an intense desire to succeed, not an unproductive fear of failure.
As with most things, it is unlikely that you would always be in one of the quadrants. But upon reflection, we can identify where other people we know fit. Then dig a little deeper and see where you think you are. If you want to go further, ask some people around you what they think of your leadership tendencies. This approach can be relevant to any of the teams we work on and certainly can be a helpful exercise in the succession journey.
Urgency overload occurs with the absolutist, alarmist and Pollyannist. Striving to move to the catalyst should be the aim. There are three tools to do this: repair, cultivate and activate.
Repair mode means setting guard rails for how you want to treat each other and committing to a specific behaviour, with a guarantee. Examples of core guarantees are:
We tell the truth.
We relieve distress.
We communicate quickly.
We repair the conflict immediately.
We act or argue over decisions and stay engaged.
David Irvine, leadership expert, recommends developing a team charter or accountability agreement, which is similar to this concept of core guarantees.
In the cultivation sphere, a leader needs to learn to spot early signals of shared urgency so that it can be shaped. They will recognize a distinct perspective and will want the team to care about the things they most care about. The guarantees set up in the repair stage can be the foundation upon which to build greater collaboration and efficiency.
The activation mode requires the leader to activate a team despite no sense of shared urgency. To do this, you must be present with your team, talk about the potential of the work and express deep beliefs in everyone’s ability to do hard things. Invite disagreements and allow your opinions to be swayed. Celebrate what you want repeated.
All of it comes together by creating a vision for a desired future for the next 12–18 months with your team. Wovchko says, “Setting crystal-clear direction is a non-negotiable in leadership.”
